Start by folding a piece of the 12×12 scrapbook paper and cut it in half. Then cut the length down to 10″. So you will have two paper pieces both 6″ x 10″. For regular size wine bottles this works perfectly. Tape the paper to the wine bottle. I’ve found tape works best when attaching the paper to glass. Then cut two pieces of furry fabric to be 2″ x 10″ and hot glue one piece of the fabric at the top and the other piece at the bottom of the paper. I cut a curved triangle section out of the top piece to make it a little more “collar like”. Then attache your jeweled buttons. Easy breezy!

Is Five Christmas Trees Too Many?
So yeah…we have five Christmas trees. Decorating for Christmas is a pretty huge ordeal at my house, not because I have a huge house, but because I try to cover every square foot of it in red and green. When I was a child, my family very rarely bothered to decorate a Christmas tree (maybe 5 times in my life), so I’m overcompensating. When Marc and I got married, we each had an artificial tree so we kept them both. Then when Mason was born (on Dec 23) we wanted him to have is own mini-tree for his homecoming on Christmas day. Well, then Brie had to have her own tree to be fair. And since the kids don’t get to participate very much in Tree #1 or Tree #2 because they are both “fancy” trees, and Mommy chose blue for Mason’s Tree #3 and pink for Brie’s Tree #4, we decided this year to start having a live tree as our “family” tree with all the kid’s home-made ornaments and miss-matched ones they choose for themselves. This year Tree #5 is fairly barren since it will be populated over the years with ornaments the kids make and choose, but some day it will be quite lovely. (Not really, it’s going to look very schizophrenic, but Mommy will just have to learn to deal with that.)

Out of Town
I will be out of town this week for work travel. Thankfully my new job does not require much travel (which was a requirement of mine before accepting the job but in my industry it’s a hard requirement to fill) and my new job has been VERY understanding and nice about working travel schedules around my life for what little travel they require, and for that I am grateful. But this week is one of those few weeks when I need to travel, but not to worry, I have postings lined up to auto-post as always so you won’t even notice I am gone! I have so much shit going on all the time that I usually have posts lined up for 1-2 months at a time. I don’t have enough to post every day, but 3 times a week is a breeze! (Hmmm, maybe that means I should work on raising my quality level.)

Duck Dynasty
My guess is many of you have not watched this show or even know what I’m talking about when I mention it, but for the first time today I watched a few clips of it. My life as a child was eerily similar to this show…except we weren’t rich…and most of my relatives were not quite that intelligent (yes, they are above average intelligence for local hillbillies)…and we didn’t have quite the close-nit family values they have. (So what’s left you say?) Well, watch the show, subtract out what I mentioned above, and that was my life! It’s quite sad really, because if you take out those things, life is not all that great. In any case, Si is my new hero!

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I recently tried Spaghetti Squash for the first time and it was yummy! Here are some easy steps to cook it.

Start by cutting the squash in half length wise and scoop out all the seeds.

Then put about 1″ of water in a baking pan, place the squash face down and cover the pan with foil. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes.

Then remove the foil, flip the squash over and place back in the oven for another 20 minutes until the squash is completely tender. Once tender, remove from oven and use a fork to scrape the inside. The squash should separate easily into noodle-like strands.

Below is one recipe we tried for it. One squash made enough for two different meals (side dishes) for two adults.

I got this cute idea from a friend and I want to share it. Going to the park in the fall is such a fun thing. The next time you go, take a couple of pieces of paper and a bottle of glue with you. Have the kids pick out the best fall leaves and blooms and paste them onto the paper for a colorful collage while you are there.

You can take a group of kids for a playdate or just your kids. Talk to them about the types of trees and leaves and specimens you find.

Right Mom?!
I can’t tell you how hard I laughed about this scenario when I saw it. It was just one of those things you see and you can’t believe it’s happening. Marc and I went to a ballet and afterwards we stopped at a local trendy bar in downtown Plano Texas. Downtown Plano is very small, quaint, brick street, old fashioned downtown. On the way into the bar we walked past a new business which advertised itself as an “event destination” aka party planning. So I commented to Marc about it being the first time I had seen it so it must be a new business.
So, after a beer and sandwich, as we exited the bar and walked back past the new establishment’s entrance, police men crossed in front of us and entered through the open door. I glanced over and saw a woman (early to mid 20’s) who was wearing a tiara and crying as she talked to the officers with her mascara running all the way down her cheeks. I heard her say, “I kept telling them to make the right choices!” and then she reached over an tapped an older woman’s shoulder who was leaning over a party table and said, “Right Mom?!” LOL All I could think was Lindsey Lohan! But the funniest was the older woman was not like Dina Lohan, she was more like Angela Landsbury. So my husband and I continued to our car, got in, backed up and as we turned to enter the roadway, a senior citizen couple (I would guess late 60’s) was dancing (the waltz) in the middle of the street! We stopped and waited. A cop came out into the street shaking his head and escorted them to the side of the road. It was quite a surreal situation. All I can say is, when I am that age, I hope I’m just like that couple. Ha!

The Heal of a Shoe
As you may have seen on my website, I put a lot of work into my daughter’s first birthday party. It was a massive amount of effort and I really appreciate anyone who tries to do that sort of thing all on their own. Well, I had a very good friend who did the same thing for her daughter on Saturday. She threw a gala Knight and Princess party with all the trimmings! And….well….I forgot the party. I was all geared up to go, bought the present the week before, heard the hype and was excited, but somehow life got away from me and I thought the party was on Sunday and not Saturday and we missed it. I felt so bad. The worst part is that I have no excuse! And I’m not a person who does that sort of thing. I am ALWAYS punctual and ALWAYS dependable, but for my friend on this occasion, I was not. And I feel just like the heal of a shoe because there isn’t anything I can do to fix it or go back and relive the day. She promised to send me pictures so I can post it on my site, but I just don’t know how to make this right. I’ve forgotten things before, no doubt, but it’s always been something I could re-do later, in this case I just suck and that’s it.

Space Commodity in a Refrigerator
We have two upright refrigerators (which have both a refrigerator and freezer section) but I am still constantly having the issue where we don’t have enough space. My husband Marc bought two very small containers of yogurt which he says he eats at work and really likes so he bought it for home. However, those containers have been in the refrigerator for over a week now (almost two) and every time I try to put something in the refrigerator, they are in the way. They are only about 1″ tall by 3″ wide, but they take up just enough space where I can not sit a bowl or anything else there. Isn’t this sad?! What a stupid thing to think about! I can’t imagine what this is going to be like when my kids are teenagers and eating like garbage disposals.

Brie’s First Pigtails
My daughter Brie finally has enough hair for me to be able to do something more than just headbands. I made her first pigtails today! They are a little crooked, so Mom has to work on her hair skills!

Mommy’s Other New Christmas Present
So last week I posted about my new sewing machine…well, this week I am posting about my new Keurig! A lot less expensive but still quite lovely!

She’s a Talker!
My 16 month old daughter officially says more words now than my son did at 2.5 years. Every word we say she repeats it perfectly. Still no sentences, but her word count is more than 29 words, I stopped counting at that point. My pediatrician said the average 2 year old says 25 words. My son was using less than 10 words at the age of 2, so there’s a big difference between these two kids!